Posted On April 2nd, 2010 Author Kyle Racki
Filed Under Business, 1
In many ways, I don’t envy client who hire design firms.
Imagine you need to buy a couch. You walk into the furniture store, and the sales rep tells you he has the perfect couch for you. Only, here’s the thing, you can’t see it until you buy it. That’s exactly what clients of design companies face, and rightly so. After all, design is custom to the client, so unless the client has a crystal ball, it’s impossible to see what the design the company will produce. Because of this natural fear of the unknown, we often see requests outlined in RFP’s that are a little bit outrageous.
Let’s break down what the fears are, and what can be done to alleviate them. Also keep in mind I am not speaking strictly about design companies but development and marketing companies as well.
We will take their money and leave them with a broken monorail
Many clients fear that a company will come along, swindle the poor business owner, and then take off to Mexico with their money without performing the work, or performing it shoddily. While the tendency might be to wait until all of the deliverables are met to pay the design company, this approach will only turn off a real firm that could do great work for them. Cash-flow is a reality for every business, and good firms cannot afford to work for weeks or months straight before getting a portion of their fees.
A better approach is to ensure that there is a contract in place before the project begins. A professional firm should have some sort of statement of work that outlines what the client will receive, when, and what the terms of payment are. As long as that is signed off and agreed upon upfront before any work is carried out, it is highly unlikely a client will get taken advantage of.
They will not get what they want
Some clients fear that when all is said and done, they will not be happy with the work and still have to pay the agency fees. Much like in the couch example mentioned above, clients don’t like not knowing what they will get before they hire a firm. Some will even request design mock-ups within a proposal, otherwise known as spec work.
While seeming reasonable to those outside the industry, spec work is inherently evil. It is asking a company to perform their work before there is a commitment from the client. It is like asking a carpenter to build you a deck and if you like what you see at the end of it, you may decide to pay him; But if it’s not quite your cup of tea, well, you will tear down and ask another carpenter to give it a try.
A much better approach is to carefully consider the design company’s approach, portfolio, case studies and client references. If the company provides that, a client can get a true sense of their quality of work, and they can rest assured that the firm will deliver designs that meet the objectives of the project. Of course in any project there is some back and forth collaboration, and really there should be. The client-designer relationship is just that, a relationship and there needs to be give and take on both sides. Client should expect to have their likes and dislikes challenged, as they are not necessarily design experts, and are probably not the target audience that they are challenging the design team to influence. Also, design companies expect that their clients may request revisions to their designs that they do not agree with, but are willing to make if they do not sacrifice the professionalism of the work.
Lack of support
Especially in development, clients are often concerned that the company they choose to build their website or application will still be there one month, 6 months or a year from when the product is launched. They want to know that there will be a friendly voice on the other side of the phone in the event they screw something up in their content management system, or when they need a new feature developed. It can be a scary thing for a client to feel all alone when they are dealing with technology outside of their area of expertise. It can also be unsettling to know that the company they chose to build their project is now out of business or simply nowhere to be found.
The best way for clients to alleviate this fear is to, again, check references. Make sure the company is incorporated and insured, that they don’t have an obvious history of financial instability. It may also be worthwhile to ask for a support agreement in the form of a retainer so that it is clear from the beginning that ongoing support and maintenance is covered in the agreement. While this will probably require a financial commitment, it will ensure that the client can always pick up the phone and expect timely help when needed.
While unfortunately there are occasions where bad things happen to good people, in the professional community, it is rare that design firms are looking to do harm to clients. More often than not, they are looking to improve their client’s businesses so they can showcase that success in their portfolio, so client usually do not have anything to fear as long as they communicate and operate in a respectful and professional manner.
Have I left out any other fears that clients may have when hiring an agency? Are there better ways to set aside those fears than what I have mentioned? I welcome your comments below.
Posted On March 18th, 2010 Author Kyle Racki
Filed Under Business, Development, 0
Many of the web projects that we bid for specify in their RFP that the vendor must build with web standards as specified by the W3C. However, in the past, some of our clients have wondered why sites we produce do not always validate, and some clients have even been challenged by losing bidders that they apparently made the wrong choice in a web partner. We were once even told that because a website didn’t validate, it would not rank highly in search engines!
The attempt of this post is to set the record straight and dispel the myth that web standards and validation are the same thing (though they are closely related).
Without getting into the intricacies of web standards, it is important to note that web standards have been devised by the W3C to separate content, presentation and behavior. HTML tags are “marked-up” around textual content in a semantic manner (using tags to describe the meaning and format of the content), and in a separate file, CSS is used to instruct the HTML how to look (ie: fonts, colours, layout etc.). For a more detailed, but completely simple and comprehensible explanation of web standards, see the post on Boagworld.
The W3C offers a validation service for free that will automatically scan a web page for inappropriate HTML tags. This makes sure that critical things like missing closing tags are spotted and corrected by the web developer. Validation is very useful and an important check to make before launching a website, but is it the same as building a site with web standards?
Remember that the ‘wrong’ way of building websites was often with HTML tables for layout, image tags for headings, and inline style-sheets. The ‘right’ way is with semantic HTML separated from presentation code. However consider this; You can build the old way, and your page will still validate, as long as your tables are correctly written, your image tags have alt attributes specified and your inline style-sheets are correctly formatted. So for anyone who says validation is some sort of certification or that it is official “proof” that a website is built to standards—the validator would in effect be approving a badly constructed website, and incorrectly stating it is built to standard.
Conversely, a properly coded, web standards-compliant website may be missing an ALT attribute on an image (which basically describes the image to users who have images disabled in their browser). Or the parameter that opens a link in a new window (target=“_blank”) may be in use. Because of these minor offenses, the web page generates validation errors. Should the errors be corrected? Probably, but sometimes it is the lesser of two evils to use degraded tags that break validation, while keeping the intended functionality of your website. (For all you geeks out there; I know you can use javascript to open links in a new window, but it’s not my point. Once a website is in a CMS, clients will often add images with ALT, or use the target parameter, in which case it’s out of your hands).
The point is, a non-standards based website may validate, while a beautifully coded, standards-based website may not validate. Validation is a best-case-scenario checklist, and not the be-all-end-all decider or whether or not a website was built with web standards.
Posted On March 11th, 2010 Author Kyle Racki
Filed Under Headspace News, Business, 6
Here at Headspace, we have been asked why certain websites do not appear as nicely as they do int IE7 and up, Firefox, or Safari. Here’s why; Since last year, we have been early adopters of the opinion that IE6 should not be supported any longer.
IE6 is a 9 year old legacy browser that is unstable, insecure and does not properly support modern web standards. About 95% of the population do not use IE6 (and unfortunately the 5% that do are often government departments that only upgrade computers about once a decade).
In fact, to emphasize this point, Google announced recently that they are phasing out support for IE6, as is stated in their official blog.
This will speed up IE6’s already rapidly approaching demise.
Our position at Headspace is that all the websites we produce should be accessible in all devices and browsers, and platform independent, which is why we build with web standards as specified by the WC3. Accessibility means that the website functions properly (ie: links can be clicked on, forms can be used, and the text can be read either visually or with an assistive device, like a screen reader). What is wonderful about this approach is that technically, a website built in standards can be viewed on IE 2.0—it just won’t be pretty. However it is still accessible, the user will not be greeted with an error message, he will be greeted with unstyled paragraphs, headings and links.
At Headspace, we do not guarantee that websites we produce will visually render the same in IE6 as they do in modern browsers. Part of this is simply because the cost to do so would be large and eat up a portion of our client’s budgets that could be used on more valuable site features instead of the comparatively low ROI of supporting a legacy browser—one that only a small portion of the population uses.
It seems 2010 is the year Internet Explorer 6 will finally die. We’re hoping that others see the value in moving on, and I sincerely hope that Google’s influence will help put the final nail in the coffin of this old, unstable, and stubborn browser. It seems now the web can move forward.
Posted On March 3rd, 2010 Author Kyle Racki
Filed Under Design, 2
If you are a web designer or work with web designers, you know that content is a real challenge when it comes to producing a quality website. Mainly because content is of critical importance, after all, that is why users are there in the first place. However, many web teams ignore content until the very end of a web project. Why?
In my experience with print design, I often had finished, client-approved copy before I was even briefed on the design. When it came time for layout, everything I was using for content was real, and I would get annoyed if any last minute copy changes came in after I spent hours kerning and massaging my lovely blocks of text.
With the web however, most of us have gotten used to the lack of finality with our designs. A website is never truly finished, unlike print, where the piece, sooner or later get’s printed—and then it’s done and I’m on to a new project. I think because of this inherent flexibility in the medium of the web, it has caused website owners to neglect copy, because they know it can always be done and added later, usually in a content management system.
In a perfect world, content should be available to a designer before he ever begins designing, just like the good old days of print. Would you agree?
But let’s get real
I have to say, while I generally would prefer this, I know that 99% of the time, it’s never going to happen. Time is money, and as long as I am waiting around for a client to write content, or even have a professional writer get copy written and approved by the client, I am wasting precious time that could be spent developing a look and feel for the website, or constructing the back-end.
Also, there are times where it actually doesn’t make sense to have all the copy written. Sure, things like calls-to-action, headlines and home page copy is great to have well in advance, but often it can be easier and more freeing to design content once it’s in place and on the page. Especially user-generated content cannot possibly be written in advance of the website design, so lorum ipsum will do just fine. And of course, in many other situations, content is not made up of words at all; It may be in the form of video or images, in which case, placeholders will have to make do.
Impossible to design without?
There have been strong comments made by very established web professionals who decry that good design can only be created with content already developed. That content is king and design is what the king is dressed in. And while I wholeheartedly agree, I also believe the being able to design a quality website can be done before every piece of copy is written. If you know the business (or non-business) goals of the website, who it’s target is, the site-map and information architecture already established, and you know what kind of copy will eventually be in place, then who is to say an effective solution can’t be designed?
Do you agree with me, or think I’m out to lunch? Let me know in the comments below.
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